Rob Thomas To Adapt British Relationship Series ‘Metropolis’ For The CW

Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas is back at the CW with Metropolis, a drama based on the 2000 British series. Thomas will write and executive produce the project, about a group of friends who are struggling with their adult lives not living up to the expectations they had when they were idealistic college friends.

The original limited series, created by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and produced by Granada TV, had an eight-episode run with a cast that included James Fox, Louise Lombard, James Purefoy and Matthew Rhys. The adaptation is being produced by Warner Bros TV, Rob Thomas Prods, ITV Studios America (formerly Granada America) and Littlefield Co, with Warren Littlefield and ITV’s Paul Buccieri executive producing.

This is Thomas’ second stab at adapting Metropolis. The previous one was at ABC during the 1999-2000 development season when the project went to pilot starring Michael Ealy, with the CW’s programming chief Thom Sherman serving as a network development executive. Thomas is now contemporizing the script.

Thomas created and executive produced cult drama Veronica Mars, which originated on UPN and ended its run on successor the CW. He was then tapped to develop the CW’s Beverly Hills, 90210 reboot but, after writing a pilot script, left to work on his two ABC pilots. Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah were brought in as executive producers/showrunners, reworking Thomas’ script and sharing a developer credit with him on 90210, now in its fifth season. UTA-repped Thomas also co-created Starz’s Party Down.